Teenage Trauma Cannot Be Ignored If We Want Healthy Adults

It’s easy to write off our teens’ experience as “drama”. Teens can be very dramatic. What we don’t often see as parents is that our teens’ “drama” can actually be “trauma,” causing deep suffering in their mental and spiritual health. Commonly, childhood and teenage trauma can quickly turn into substance use or other mental health issues. To help your son grow into a healthy adult, it’s crucial to find him a trauma treatment program that can help him heal and move forward with his life without turning to harmful practices and habits. Our adolescent treatment center is able to provide your family with the support you need to move past a traumatic event in a healthy and effective manner.

The Importance of Understanding Teen Trauma

New research from the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry suggests it could take years for issues to manifest. Though the study only focused on women, it revealed that the effects of trauma in teenage years can take time to develop. 243 women were studied from about the age of 35 for the next 16 years. Throughout the study, women were regularly tested for mood and cognition in addition to hormone measurement. At the end of the study, the women gave information about the stress and trauma they experienced in both childhood and adolescence. Forbes explains that “Most of the women’s traumas had occurred before they went through puberty, and involved emotional abuse, living with someone with addiction, and parental separation or divorce.”

Women who experienced two or more traumatic events were twice as likely to experience major depression during their late 30’s to late 40’s and during their experience with menopause. Interestingly, the article cites, the women “…weren’t any more likely to have experienced depression earlier in life.” Menopause is the second major shift in hormones women must face, not including the many hormonal changes experienced during pregnancy. For men and women alike, suppressed emotions and untreated traumatic experiences show up at any phase in life through depression, anxiety, PTSD, and frequent addiction issues. One answer for the finding in the studies is that as a child matures into an adult, their stress responses change, slighted by the traumatic experiences. Some people can stave off the effects until something like a significant hormonal shift triggers their emotions. “As far as what can be done to sever the tie between early life stress and mid-life depression,” the article writes, “treating the early stuff as soon as possible is probably the key.” Treating childhood trauma and stress later in life is helpful in those who do not develop maladaptive forms of coping like addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders, and other issues. By mid-life, many problems might already have been caused. “It’s generally more effective to deal with the trauma and re-regulate the stress response earlier on.”

Teen Trauma Treatment at Stonewater Adolescent Recovery Center

Stonewater Adolescent Recovery Center is committed to helping teens and adolescents build a foundation for their lives, rooted in faith and recovery. Our residential treatment programs focus on creating life skills and development while healing the mind, body, and soul. Through dual diagnosis treatment, we are also equipped to help teen males work through any mental health or substance use struggles they’re already facing as a result of their teen trauma. Our services help the individual to heal and recover while also reconnecting with their families as well. Additional services we offer include the following: